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<h1>How I Learned to Insist on Free Software</h1>
<p>
  I saw
  a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/freesoftware/comments/76o0mi/what_was_your_journey_from_going_from_nonfree_to/">post</a>
  on r/freesoftware yesterday and thought I'd
  write <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/freesoftware/comments/76o0mi/what_was_your_journey_from_going_from_nonfree_to/dogrp27/?utm_content=permalink&utm_medium=api&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=freesoftware">my
  response</a> here.</p>

<div class="md">
<blockquote>
<p>I was only 11 years old</p>
<p>I loved Apple so much, I had all the apps and <abbr title="World Wide Developer Conference">WWDC</abbr> videos</p>
<p>I read Apple's website every night before bed, longing for the life I’d be given</p>
<p><q>Apple is love</q> I say; <q>Apple is life</q></p>
</blockquote>
</div>

<p>
  When I was about eleven years old, I was obsessed with Macs.  I
  would read Apple's website every day, and I scoured the Web for ways
  to make my computer act more like a Mac.  It mostly involved
  installing junky themes on top of Windows XP.  But, one day, I
  stumbled upon a Darwin project on SourceForge, and I learned about
  the Unix core of Mac OS X and how it was very similar
  to <a href="https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#whyslash">GNU+Linux</a>.</p>
<p>
  Eventually, I landed
  on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070706044509/http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu">Ubuntu's
  website</a>.  I noticed they would mail me a CD of Ubuntu 7.04
  Feisty Fawn in th mail <em>at no cost</em>.  I couldn't believe that
  they would do it, so I asked for a CD, and <em>they actually sent
  it!</em>  When it arrived in the mail, I was shocked.  I opened the
  CD cover and read it all immediately.</p>
<p>
  The CD cover talked about something odd.  It said Ubuntu was <q>free
  software</q>, but that it didn't mean that Ubuntu was necessarily at
  zero cost.  It said it was free because of <em>freedom</em>, it gave
  me a bulleted list of each of
  the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">Four
  Freedoms</a>.  It said Ubuntu would always guarantee these to its
  users.</p>
<p>
  The idea of free software and the spirit of <q>ubuntu</q> intrigued
  me.  When I booted Ubuntu on my computer for the first time, all I
  could think was <q>Wow!  I have the source code to <em>all</em> of
  this?  I can learn how my whole computer works, if I learn how to
  program?  This is amazing!</q>
<p>
  I bragged about this, and how it had the same core as the operating
  system on Macs.  I made it look like a Mac desktop, and I used
  Ubuntu for a year while saving up to buy a MacBook.  I used my
  MacBook for a year, until I realized that I kept trying to do things
  the Ubuntu way, because I started to actually appreciate free
  software.</p>
<p>
  So, I switched back to Ubuntu.  I sold my MacBook and got a Meerkat
  from System 76 with Ubuntu pre-installed.  I used for a long
  time.</p>
<p>
  At one point in my life, I was moving a between locations a lot, and
  I had nowhere to power on my Meerkat.  I ended up using my Galaxy
  Nexus and Google services for everything.  I really bought into the
  ChromeOS idea being pushed by Google at the time, and all my data
  was solely stored on Google services.</p>
<p>
  That didn't last long.  I got into trouble fast.  Apparently, I did
  something on just <em>one</em> of Google's services that Google did
  not like, and so they decided to shut down my account and lock me
  out forever.  I lost all my data, including precious childhood
  photos and school projects that I liked to look back on.  All of it,
  just gone.</p>
<p>
  At that time, I still valued free software, even though I didn't
  think about the perils of <abbr title="Service as a Software
  Substitute">SaaSS</abbr>.  It was why I made sure to get my mobile
  rooted and flashed with a custom operating system.  And after my
  experience of losing lots of childhood memories, I said <q>this is
  the last straw!</q>.  I left Chrome and went back to using my own
  computer to do my activities.  I installed Mint GNU+Linux on my
  laptop and FreeBSD on my Meerkat.</p>
<p>
  I used FreeBSD for a while.  I thought <q>Wow!  It's so free that
  you can destroy freedom!</q>  I used it for about a year in 2013,
  thinking that all the source code on it was free software by
  default.  I took special care not to install proprietary programs
  like Adobe Flash.  My FreeBSD buddies at the time heckled me for
  this, calling me names like <q>freetard</q>.  Eventually, they got
  annoyed by my refusal to install proprietary programs on my FreeBSD
  system, so I thought <q>You know, maybe these mean people are wrong
    about the extremism of GNU.  Maybe GNU is not so bad.</q></p>
<p>
  So, I went to GNU's website.
  I <a href="https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#BSD">read
  about FreeBSD</a>.  What I read astounded me: <q>No BSD distribution
  has policies against proprietary binary-only firmware</q>, they
  said.</p>
<p>
  I felt betrayed.  <q>Liars!</q> I thought.  But, maybe GNU was lying
  to stick it to the BSD people.  Maybe it wasn't that big a deal.
  So, I went back to the FreeBSD user group.  I asked them about
  it.  <q>Where are the blobs in FreeBSD's source code?</q></p>
<p>
  They answered me.  Lo and behold, there was
  indeed <a href="https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/release/9.0.0/sys/contrib/dev/iwn/iwlwifi-1000-39.31.5.1.fw.uu">a
  blob</a> on my system, buried in the same directory as all the
  rest of my system's source code.  And in it, I read a message that
  was a slap in the face to my dignity as a user.</p>
<blockquote>
  <pre>
* No reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this software
is permitted.
  </pre>
</blockquote>
<p>
  To top it off, there was no source code.  To modify this software,
  you'd have to do what was forbidden above.  It's completely
  illegible!</p>
<pre>
begin-base64 644 iwlwifi-1000-39.31.5.1.fw.uu
AAAAAElXTAoxMDAwIGZ3IHYzOS4zMS41LjEgYnVpbGQgMzUxMzgKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQUfJ0KJAAABAAAAAAAAAAEAAAAY7AEAICCADwAAQABpIAAAaSBAAGkg
AABpIEAAICCADwAA6ABpIAAAaSBAAGkgAABpIEAAICCADwAAMAVpIAAAaSBAAGkgAABKIAAASiEA
</pre>
<p>
  This is what the whole remainder of the so-called source code looked
  like.  It was nothing but a bunch of binary junk encoded
  in <samp>base64</samp>.  I felt cheated.  <q>This is not source!</q>
  I thought.</p>
<p>
  Angry, I went back to GNU's website.  I asked myself, <q>Where is a
  system that will respect my ownership of it?</q>  I searched their
  website and read all
  their <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/">philosophy</a>.  And, eventually,
  I found
  a <a href="https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html">list of
  distributions</a> that were guaranteed to respect me as their
  master.  My eyes lit up.</p>
<p>
  I installed <a href="https://trisquel.info">Trisquel</a>.  I never
  looked back.</p>
<p>
  (Well, I still distro-hop between free distros.  I <abbr title="kind
  of">kinda</abbr> need to stop that!)</p>

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<p>Last updated: 2017-10-16 18:28:36 CDT.</p>
<p>
Copyright 2017 Caleb Herbert under the terms of the
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Attribution
4.0 International</a> license.</p>
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